EU Vote, Suppression Therapy, Food Prices, Oil Prices

Iceland Roundup

The Reykjavík Grapevine's Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin journalist Aðalsteinn Kjartansson, and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to roundup the stories making headlines in recent weeks. On the docket this week are: 

Icelanders To Vote On EU

The government announced last week that a referendum asking whether or not Iceland should  continue negotiations with the EU about what terms Iceland could join the union on. The referendum will take place on August 29th.

Fish Washes Ashore In South Iceland, Locals Eat It

The strange occurrence of perfectly edible fish washing ashore in the small fishing village of Stokkseyri made the news this weekend. Reasons are unclear, but getting fish into the pots of the locals, usually requires more work.

Standardized School Tests Back After A 5 Year Absence 

Elementary schools in Iceland held the first standardized tests since 2021, last week.

The Chancellor Of the Catholic Church In Iceland’s Great PR

 RÚV reported that the Catholic Church in Iceland was providing suppression therapy, which is illegal in Iceland. The Chancellor of the Icelandic congregation said, when queried on the subject that: “We must preach what the church preaches. It is that simple. [..]Whether it is legal or illegal, I know about these laws [..] Parliament does not  dictates to me what I should say. I should say what the church tells me and what Jesus Christ proclaims." So much for secularism.

Price Of Food Has Risen Faster Than Salaries

The price of food in Iceland has risen by 7,8% since the last collective bargaining agreement was signed in March 2024 according to The Icelandic Confederation of Labour (ASÍ), and by 10% according to Statistics Iceland. ASÍ’s main economist, Ágúst Arnórsson, told visir.is that the price hikes could void the 2024 collective bargaining agreement.

Middle East War — Oil Prices To Go Up In Iceland

And adding fuel to the fire that is currently the high inflation in Iceland are expected price raises on gasoline.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Go and dine. The Rick of a Great Man also has a store. It funds our journalism. It sells all sorts of stuff, including specially curated gift boxes. Just like the uh famous Icelanding hot dog box. Go shop there now and fund our journalism. Hello and welcome to yet another episode of Iceland Round Top, brought to you every Monday by the regular grapevine. I'm Jon Tus Tison. With me today are Cynthia Elton. Go on then.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And forget about that. And substituting. I will make this stick.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

I will turn this into a thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Substituting for Anastet Castlason, who is away because uh his uh daughter's preschool uh closed due to staffing issues this morning, which led me to ask him the question who are you whom will you vote for in the upcoming municipality elections? Is Bob Cameron, the editor in chief of the Reykjavikan.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

But we have a blue. He ended up on the underside of it's not that. He ended up on the underside of the the wheels of industry this time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Alested's uh Reykjavik proper, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Reykjavik proper? Like like not he doesn't live in Copewor, no. Yeah, he's not a true suburb of the club. He lives in Magla Dalur. Yeah, yeah. He lives in my next town.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah. Yeah. My new suburban lifestyle. No, it's not suburban because it's the heart of the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Well, it's yeah, it's you I feel like it's kind of the oldest suburb in the city, honestly. It's one of them. Grew independently and it's got a lot of old, big old houses. Like it's it's suburban to me. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I'm I'm gonna do uh a quick overview of the topics I've written down. You are welcome to add to them then. Uh so last week's news highlights here. Uh Icelanders will vote on uh reassuming negotiations with the EU this time. Um standardized school tests are back after a five-year absence.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Which we got the letter for, right? You got the letter this week. Yeah. Did you? And we had to sign some things because my kids start today, I think, with the tests.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Uh yeah, I I'm not sure actually. Uh, this is one of those things where I didn't actually do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yes, the middle school kids, yeah. Well uh also the last year of uh elementary school.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Right. And then uh the price of food has risen faster than salaries. Uh oil prices are gonna be going up, which relates to uh international incidents ongoing.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Um the price of food is obviously going up because the breadbasket of Europe is in the fourth year of the city.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, well I it could also just be local greed. It's very hard to tell.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Which we have been looking into wholesaler fights.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

I suppose you could argue that the breadbasket of Europe is being invaded due to local greed.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

And then uh the Chancellor of the Catholic Church in Iceland talked about some great PR last week. And uh then for some quick news, uh fish has been washing ashore in South Iceland and the locals are picking up and eating it. Which is unusual. Usually you have to go out there and actually catch the fish, but uh not this time around.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Yeah, they're breeding much uh much more pliant fish now. They've uh that's that's what those fish farms are all about.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Well, they all will the fish watched this Instagram post and it was and it was about like I don't know. I was gonna go with the Black Sand Beach Instagram posts where they this is the opposite angle where the fish watched it and decided to try out.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

That's pretty dark.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

No, that's fine. No, it's uh I don't know. I mean, you know, six thousand odd years of domesticating sheep have gonna make them doseile. Maybe it's our chance to like domesticate.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

The fish must die for us. I think it you know it's uh uh you know Putin and Trump are sending their boys out to to die for their country. We're just we're just sending our fish to the shores to die for us. Well, that's a pretty compromise. Do you want to start with the fish? I always start with the fish. We'll be on the potatoes by the end of the episode.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Monday it's traditionally fish day. Yeah. Really? As opposed to the other days which are not fish days. Well, I thought it was Commonwealth Day.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Uh set it on my calendar. That's too common for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Uh no. I like that. That was good.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

So no, there was like this. It I mean, sometimes you have these odd short stories with actually very little explanation and just a single quote from a single person, and this is one of them, the fish story. Yeah. So fish have been watching apparently on shore uh at the small fishing village of Stock City on the sort of southwest coast.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Right, Stock City is in the another UNESCO site in in Iceland, is it not? As in Stock City on the peninsula of Snifusnes Peninsula. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Stock City is next to Selfosh. It's next close to the jail, actually.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Uh you're thinking of Snakes Holmes. Yes, I was.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, yeah. Close enough. I mean, there's a lot of small villages. I confuse it.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

It's one I've been to a lot though, Stock City, unfortunately. So extremely embarrassed to be mixing it up.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Well, I keep mixing up, well, kind of obviously, Olazwik and Olasföd. One is in the north, one is in the west.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

Um so you collectively have probably offended like eight people? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Stock City is a is a is not that small of a fishing village.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

It's I I don't know, and then I confuse Stock City with Arabaki, which is the next one to it. So I just call it Stock's Arabaki to kind of avoid it. Yeah, to confirm to avoid the fact that I can never remember which is which. Okay. So you're not the only one here. No, that's the same. And one of them has our jail and the other one doesn't. But I'm not sure which is which sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

One of them is the home of our drummer, uh my drummer, Copert.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Stocks are like I think of jail is at Alabaki. Um there's a weird story about that because they the community wanted to build a hospital, got together a lot of funds a hundred years ago. Not enough to like complete it, so the state took it over and changed it into a jail, which is not what they signed up for.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Anyway, the fish you want you want a big building with some sick people in it. Yeah, we can we can we can accommodate you there.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Uh fish are awesome here, hopping themselves en masse on the shores.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, so fish are apparently floating ashore in in in state fresh enough to be eaten, so some of the locals have actually been picking it up according to V Civ story this weekend, yeah, and eating it.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Not raw, you know, they they cook them as you would a normal fish.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

I'm not sure how like you're not making sushi out of pot, eh? Probably not. But uh uh this is due to, and there's a single quote here, to a local fisherman.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

I'm not eating any sushi this week, I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

He says that there's abundance of fish out there, but the uh uh the heavy waves have been washing the fish uh from the like sort of shallows out there, yeah. Hitting some rocks and just knocking them out and killing them, and then they float ashore, and then people pick them up and eat them. I maybe I don't know if this is like a like leads into a bigger story about inflation and and the price of food, but how are fish still around?

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Like after what, like 500 million years? Yeah. Like how are they still so successful, like in everywhere? They're just like the dumbest, weakest pieces of shit you can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Uh I mean wait until you see a uh a Greenland shark, man. Those those dudes are alive for like a half a century.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

You know, they get so old that parasites eat their eyes and they go blind, right? Yeah. But they can still hunt seals somehow, and nobody really knows how.

unknown 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Like if they find like seals in their stomachs in the the condition that like they they were not scavenged, like they were they were eaten, you know, they were they were preyed upon. I guess if nobody really knows how they do it.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

If you I guess like if you do something long enough, you will be able to do it like blindfolded.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Yeah, slow and steady wins the race. Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

No, but uh it's it's just yeah, it's one of those weird stories that you know have a single quote in them and and are kind of strange. When But there were pictures, so I start to believe this.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

When the grapevine was was founded.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah, because they can't just make up pictures now. Like there's some some world-killing plagiarism machine churning away in multiple countries.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, this is actually gonna turn into a story about how much of our electricity was spent on creating that fish image.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah. That fooled me. I did an AI search today and felt so guilty about it. Uh I don't remember what it was, but um it was just a stupid search. And I still clicked the AI button knowing I was like, this is like gonna destroy. This is such a waste of energy when I click that AI search button.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

I h I hate what a workaround it is to not use like AI, to do like a just like a regular search. I I I remember I was very grateful when I picked up the like if you if you were doing like a Google search, if you just end it with minus AI, it won't show you AI results.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Oh, that's helpful. So But that leaves you with Google results, which is not helpful either.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Right. Right, right, right. It's at least a start. You're at least you're at least sort of politely requesting not to be lied to. I think if you type if you do an AI search, it's just like, yes, fill my head with bullshit, please. Yeah. Just kill the planet so that I can feel slightly smarter.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Aaron Ross Powell The Fish story and the um and the Greenlandic shark story remind me of how the grapevine used to serve here on this location and and when the harbor was more of a working harbor, and we used to watch the fish fish catches come in. And then one day we were here and and somebody came in with 13 sharks. 13 Greenlandic sharks. They would put it on the top. They would just leave them on the deck of the boat, and then they'd have a crane to pull them off. It was amazing. So we saw them getting taken out to Snifusness where they processed them. Um it was different, Reykjavik was different 20 years ago, it was more of a working city. I I keep on thinking about this because uh you and I are part of a sports organization where the where the sponsor was Lisi and they dropped the sponsorship. And I feel like that's because Reykjavik is less of a working city, kind of uh whereas other cities are are more working, um more identified with in industry. Yeah, probably. And the fishing industry was so so big here before.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, I guess it doesn't really say much necessarily about the decline of Reykjavik itself, but the fact that's just a change. Yeah, just the fact that industry has just slowly been gentrified out of the city proper, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:02

Yeah, I mean it sort of goes to because I mean it's still like the fisheries that fucking own this country, right? And they, you know, for the most part live in the greater Reykjavik area, right? And I I think you know it's not an accident like that they, you know, that they they prefer to just think of these fish as like these money-making machines than they can make investments in in other things. And you know, they don't want to see how their own sausage is made anymore. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

They don't want to hit in front of them. I mean, this harbor, by the way, f so before I make another error like I do with Stock City, the the is it what do we say? Fox of Flowy Harbor, right? Yeah, well uh Because I know they just won Harbor of the Year for for Which is kind of a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I think Foxaflow. I think Foxaflowe Harper is the name for the harpers in the Reykjavik area. Yeah. And like you can kind of argue that we have I guess two. It is the Reykjavik Harper, which is the one next to us. Yeah. Which is both the Grand Town Grantepart and the one that's just outside of uh well, 101, uh which is traditionally the old harbour. Yeah. And then we have Sundahub, which is the cargo docks. The cargo and the uh larger vessels, which are nest next to V the Island.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I wonder which one uh but the Fox of Fox of Flow Company or City Organization, yeah. Won the big award for I was amused because it said best European Atlantic Harbor, which seemed um I guess I guess they're considering the Mediterranean outside of the Yeah, and the North Sea or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Like I don't know. This it seemed like a big award. It's probably like a FIFA Peace Prize.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

We don't have negotiating power to get a FIFA. We can't threaten people. So it seemed like the harbor is is commendable to a lot of people, but it's so much out of our existence that I was like, well, how did you get because we know the person who who is at Fox Fox's load? Uh yeah. Well, it's just I was so we're so removed from the workings of the harbor now.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with like I mean, they're just taking up these uh they're accommodating for these uh massive cruise ships which can reach out.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Which you kind of don't notice.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

I mean, you see the surge of people, but you don't notice the onboarding No, you don't see it, and you you only see like the smoke from the chimneys. Yeah. Because they they kind of drop into the cityscape.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Sometimes you look in the wrong direction and you see this giant tower of suck just shadowing everything.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah, like coming here from Seattle where the like the fairies would really disrupt things constantly.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

It's quite a difference.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, you like it's so like I see them very frequently because they I live kind of nearby Sindhab. So I see them sort of when I'm driving back home. And they're just like these gigantic, humongous apartment buildings afloat with a like a 19th century chimney smoke coming out of them. They're like a clip part from Monty Python or something on the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Everything that's wrong with the world.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah, I guess it's but uh then like well, and I've gone down actually to where people uh go through customs and and uh passport control.

SPEAKER_04 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

And like because of the fact that we didn't have that many of these in the past like until very recently, they don't really have the infrastructure to uh accommodate for this.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

So what they've done, they're about they're building it, but there would be like these kind of big tans on the sort of on the hardport to to deal with this.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

To do these massive cruise ships, and massive cruise ships are a way people more and more coming to Iceland. And we know for August 12th, the eclipse, there's gonna be kind of a record number of cruise ships on the case.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

It's gonna be like a probably like a whole floating you know, almost I'm okay, I'm making this up, obviously. But to me, like the first thing I think of is like something that is aching to the population of an i an Icelandic city just floating somewhere conveniently for the each other.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

It'd be a l yeah, probably a large Icelandic city. Yeah. I know there were 18, right? I thought cities? No, eight eighteen cruise ships.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

For that?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

I I don't know. How many people do these have on average? Like five thousand or something?

SPEAKER_03 15:29

Yeah, and like then all these people have to go through like a processing center that's like a like an ad hoc tent or something that's yeah, at this point, it's they dock, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So I assume they will. But yeah, it's this is our obsession, right? Trying to cover August 12th in advance and the infrastructure. Oh, good. It's staggering what's going to be happening as people come to ISIN to watch the eclipse.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Can you imagine like what the media reaction would be if they had tents like that to process, you know, the people coming through the airport? It's like, oh, but because it's like rich people, because it's cruise ship people, I'm sure they're harmless. They're just coming here to spend money. Let please let them in.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, it's like the the aesthetics of this are kind of interesting because because it's it's these gigantic tents, it kind of reminds me of one of two things I've seen. One one thing I have no neither of which I've actually seen seen, like with my own two eyes, but one of them is uh like it looks kind of like a refugee camp. The other thing it reminds me of, and this is even almost darker than that, is the um the intensive care tents they put up in Sweden during COVID, like military tents camping. So they would be running sort of like yeah, these uh you know, military ad hoc uh intensive care units outside of the hospitals because they were all full. Uh and these were all like antiquated 80s military gear. It's kind of weird to see.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Well, let's hope it fucking dissuades these floaters from ever coming back here.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Like But I know I I like anyway, there they seem to be building something nice for them. But uh good.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

I'm glad that someone is thinking of those poor cruise ship joke quads.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

I mean, the whole infrastructure question is interesting because like we're expecting record numbers here for the the eclipse.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

No, the eclipse, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

And this is And the best places, the best locations in Iceland to see the eclipse uh is gonna be Inside a volcano.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

It's gonna be right this way, sir.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Not that far from where they wrote the book inside the volcano.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

You won't need your jacket.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

This one uh this one I do know. This one is talking about snipers? Yeah, this one is the right.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yes. Uh the uh Journey through the center of the earth. Yes. Also where uh people in the nineties arrived en masse to welcome the aliens.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

In the nineties? Yeah, you remember this? Oh, oh boy, do I remember? I think my grandma was there.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Have you ever heard of this? Yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah, it's an astonishing thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

But uh but maybe it requires expl explanation to the other. Well, uh it requires drugs, I would build I would imagine. Two things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

I think some boomers whose acid hadn't quite left the system decided that aliens were gonna land in Sniper in the mid-90s.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Mid-1990s, yeah. And uh there was But this is a tradition at Snifus. Like weird shit? Yeah. Of people kind of expecting weird things to happen there. Yeah, it's been a gathering spot for Weird Shit for hundreds of years, basically.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

It has I think conspiracy loons still maintain that Sniffers Geogutl has some sort of occult status and that it might be indeed like a gateway to hollow earth or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah, I think it also like even like the oldest manuscripts we have in them, uh there's myth mythical things applied to the area.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

In the oldest Icelandic manuscripts, which is essentially the oldest European manuscripts. Some of them, yeah. Somehow refer to this one location where in the world.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Well, there yeah, there's just like the the Barodar Saga Sniffelsau, sort of the the saga about some dude called Barodar who lived there has him sort of transform into some sort of a higher being or something. I I can't remember, but it's all kinda weird. Fuck beast.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

We didn't we were gonna run in this issue the folklore from from there as well. Oh obviously Axlab.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Axlabud. Right. The only Icelandic serial killer. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

I I can't remember was that Body County was thirteen or eighteen, but Houston Axe. No, this is the 14th century, I think. It's pretty it's pre-modern, I think. I think it's like late medieval. But I'm yeah, I want to say the 16th century at the latest. Groovy.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

So that's all in this region where people in the 1990s went to meet the aliens that were going to visit Iceland and this specific uh it's actually my favorite vacation spot kind of from Reykjavik, because you can drive there from two hours and it's really beautiful. And uh there's a really classy hotel if you've got the if you've got the money, a hotel booter. Yeah. It's a great meal, and uh uh anyway, the that that uh glacier is more accessible than most. It's also the best blueberry picking, kind of, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Oh, I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The blueberry picking there is really good.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Uh so in the 1990s they went to visit aliens, and now, strangely, for this August 12th.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

The aliens came to visit us, that's where they were gonna land. Yeah. And then when they didn't land, I assume there was some sort of orgy, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Uh I think I can also like there's another like fact about the area which is kind of interesting for Icelandic history and you know the history of Australia incidentally relates to it.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Wasn't expecting to bring Australia in.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

No, so in the seventeenth late 1700s, the first sort of naturalists or whatever you call those sort of you know enlightenment figures, yeah, wanted to go to Iceland for well first for like reasons that had to do with uh uh recording just geo like geology and stuff like that. Uh and also just to record plants. But they came here originally like a French expedition and then an English expedition in the late 1770s no early 1770s to uh witness an eclipse. And the English expedition was uh uh run by somebody called Banks and he was an aristocrat who had uh like a couple of years earlier funded the first Cook expedition to Australia.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Didn't go on the second expedition because he was such a primo donor that Cook couldn't deal with him. So instead he went here for uh for that purpose.

unknown 21:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

But uh yeah, so you know it's kind of the origins of Icelandic tourism also take back to this.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Snipesness.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

The the first Englander to not come here because of Lack of crumpets on record.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah, but the uh you know then then you know in the in the you know in the pre like the decades after this is into the early 19th century, people were coming here for you know more of the same, and then into the 19th century you get to like those Victorians eventually who really were into the sagas.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah, can I just point out you've you've got the best English tourist probably in the whole world for Iceland? Because you've got Auden coming and writing letters from Iceland. And was Tolkien here in person before he he essentially riffed off of Icelandic culture to build one of the more engaging works of literature?

SPEAKER_03 22:37

I I wonder if it was his trip to Iceland that led Auden to uh infamously remark to John Lacar that he was feeling uh very unfucked. Or like tragically unfucked or something like that. So like m uh As I went to Iceland feeling tragically unfucked as a result. Don't think I shall be going back.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yours WHO the Empire All the Commonwealth. Too common for me.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Tragically unfucked.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yeah, well uh underfucked, I think it was. I'm feeling very underfucked. The so so not un okay. Yeah, I mean like Icelandic people they'll fuck you, but you know, they'll they'll underfuck you. It's not insufficient, really. For a for a man of Auden's uh appetites.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah, so like another famous Englishman who came here in the 19th century was William Morris, who's now much most known for his textile designs.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Aaron Ross Powell Right. And his his uh diary or memoir is what you learned when you're in when when I was at How School Assange's to try to learn about Icelandic culture.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Aaron Powell It's uh it's uh it's an interesting. It's available, yeah. It's in in both obviously English and Icelandic.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Sorry, uh University of Iceland is what I should have said, not High School Isson.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

But uh all that aside, like back to the infrastructure, this is gonna be interesting, just so we get this out of the way. Because the I mean these places in the west of Iceland which will be according to Yeah sorry, in fact we didn't name the two places that that you're gonna be with it. It's Snifersness and it's gonna be is it the south parts of the Westfjords? It is the south part. Yeah. And these are I mean Sniffens is not far away, really. It's like two, two and a half hours of a drive from Reykjavik. The southwest parts of the Westfjords take a bit longer to get to, let's say about five hours. But neither of these locations have the infrastructure for like mass traffic in any sort of like the road to Sniffens is like would you maybe consider like one and a half width.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

Yeah, I think you might find these drive times will multiply somewhat in the lead up to the actual eclipse.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

And I think the the nearest example I can think of which this might turn into is the 1994, 50 years anniversary of the uh Icelandic Republic that was supposed to take place when there was like a 30-mile traffic jam all the way to I think you know, 40 minutes away from Mickeyberg, and it was just like a weekend of traffic jams.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Did you go?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

No, I don't know. So like I I'm I I was in Loyowat, so we saw no point in adding to the jam.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

We were doing something even back then, like our roads were insufficient to our cars, and we just keep pumping cars into this country, just more, more cars. Give us more cars. Yes. They're warm. Almost like it's a fucking poisonous blame upon our society.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Cars are literally just an overcoat for us. It's gotta this has gotta stop. It's a very expensive overcoat.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah, we we we talk a lot about this in the office. We don't really put it in writing.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

So an overcoat that will fucking kill you if you don't we talked a lot about it in the office and and trying to put it into writing because I get shit faced and put on an overcoat, I don't kill anybody.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah, that's because it doesn't have four wheels. Um so back to something else. I mean, I guess kind of the biggest story in local politics uh in the week that passed was that the government finally announced that there would be a referendum uh on August 29th, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

August twenty-ninth, yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Uh on resuming negotiations with the EU on joining.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

So not on joining the EU, but resuming negotiations about I like that we have anti-EU parties and pro looking into maybe joining someday joining the EU parties.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

And I think like uh this is kind of an interesting story because usually like uh the rumors of the this something like this would have spread locally first, but this was in the actually in the international news a couple of weeks ago because political uh published a story citing some anonymous sources within the EU about this. And then nobody here would comment on it until this announcement was made. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

It was it was leaked abroad.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah, that's unusual for us. Uh and I mean I guess the like some of the talk last week, well the opposition obviously uh made well a series of kind of terrible arguments why we shouldn't be voting at that point. Uh one of them was like people are still on vacation, which is categorically not true. It's usually it's also a shit argument.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

It's like you know, because it's once again the right proves how in touch with the common man they are.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Because uh that's gonna be the Friday of the first week of school. People are gonna be back generally. Yeah, whether they like it or fucking not. I mean, the like we have for our American listeners, we have long vacations in in in Europe here and in Iceland included. Um the vote's on a Friday? It's on a Friday or Saturday, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

Yeah, I thought I was gonna say we always my bad.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Um uh the the official time frame of using up your vacation days is from August uh is it from uh May 15th through September 15th. No, sorry, yeah. No, May 1st, sorry, uh to uh September 15th. But most people obviously take their time off in July because everything is closed anyway, so Iceland kind of shuts down, at least you know the wheels of commerce kind of slowed down for for that period of time. So and it feels like and traditionally like the municipality elections which are taking part they're taking place this spring, they're 15 days into this period, which is uh May 15th. Yeah. And this is 15 days before the period ends. So I don't like it's a really weird argument to make.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Yeah, imagine that, a right-wing politician full of shit.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

But uh it's it it's I don't know, it's uh I I kind of was pondering also like why they're doing it now, because they talked about like in their whatever you call Sturten Softmore, when they created uh uh the coalition.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Covenant of governance. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah, they they put together like a document of their like goals and and aims and and they gotta start ticking stuff off the list a bit more forcefully, haven't they?

SPEAKER_03 29:13

Because they've not been they've not been putting out any bangers. Uh it's been uh it's been rough.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

But uh they talked about you're saying the current ruling government has not put out any bangers? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Uh yes. In the proverbial sense, I'm not expecting them to make sausages.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

They're not losing They're not losing popularity like that.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Or popular tunes. But yeah, they've they've they've sort of uh fumbled a few of their major issues. This media bill, which you of course decried as woefully efficient. That's kind of a yeah. And uh and the housing uh thing that they they kind of fumbled as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

And then we've got their biggest one, which is all over the news, is the failure to keep David Ludson alive. Well, it relates to cars, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Uh the the the big problem is they switched from just getting your tax off the when you pump your gas to trying to calculate it off the miles you drive.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

And it's been a bit of a shit show.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Everybody who owns a car has to try to calculate their own what they owe to the tax office, right? And especially bad for people who rent cars, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Yeah, I think I think it's uh it's this gets to the heart of what fundamentally irritates me so much about taxes, and I think everyone else is not the idea that paying them is bad, is that they make you work so hard to give someone else your money. Like why can't they if they want my money, they can come take it, but they should do the fucking work.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

I agree with this. I just I just want sort of medieval extortion. Somebody who shows up at your door and asks for your money and then beats you up in the phone.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Robin Hood Disney one?

SPEAKER_03 30:45

I think he was a wolf, just like a really fat wolf, wasn't he? The Sheriff of Nottingham.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

He had like a whistle when he talked, I think.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

I mean little John was a bear. I think I think the Sheriff of Nottingham was a like a fat wolf with a southern accent.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah, that's that helps. So we will if we could get a father.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Clearly the same guy who did the voice of like one of the long-eared dogs and aristocrats.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

So we need that person to come to it all what you didn't say in your newsweek is it's it's tax filing week for Icelanders.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Oh yeah, remember to file your taxes. It's uh fairly simple unless you have a very complicated life.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Yeah, we really do make it easy. Yeah, it's all online.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

To do that if you're a foreigner, we just go to you're gonna go to Eastland Punta.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Or ska turn like taxes. It's not hard to find. Just go you'll find it. Yeah. It's uh it's it's a pretty like if you've been working kind of a normal day job, uh everything should have been filed into the system. You don't really have to do that. You just have to make sure nothing is missing and then you're okay. If you own nothing like most people do, then uh well even if you own stuff, it's still gonna be in there by default. So it's kind of a um unless you're like uh a contractor who has like a lot of things all all over the place, it's it's gonna be pretty easy.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Which is which is a lot of people now, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

So this was the distraction from you were saying you know, the timing of of filing this referendum on whether to continue negotiations on the EU.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

I think so it was originally like people were expecting it in 2027. I think they're moving it forward now because they want it to happen. They want people to like agree on it. And historically it's been shown that when inflation and uh quite of the Vextir? Yeah, inflation. No, Vexter. Is that not inflation?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

No, like I'm not gonna be able to help here because I d I actually don't recognize the world.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Wow, what's the thing? Wow, my brain is just flat. Like uh the thing like you pay a housing loan under the state.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Do we need to take a fair interest?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, in an environment of high interest and high inflation, people are more supportive of the EU because they tend to collectively believe that uh joining the EU would lower these things. Uh so we've been having a spout of that, so I think they want to write on that as bad as it is, rather than not.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

We are having I know I'm not sitting in a room full of economists, but you know, is that is it not entirely possible that that is kind of true? Like if we were if we were on the Euro, maybe inflation uh wouldn't be quite so bad. Yeah, but would wouldn't we be less empowered to do so if we didn't have this own bullshit currency with all the fish and priests on it?

SPEAKER_01 33:26

That's kind of the problem, not so very much the priests. Like, I mean we create a dag on here. Yeah, but you you kind of like people tend to like say, well, the th reason why we have inflation is because we're terrible at running economies, but that's not entirely true either, because the problem is that our economy is made up of like a few large components which are all uh prone to like massive fluctuations. Tourism, fisheries, these are things that are really hard to like deal with. So it's not only our problem, but like fault, it's also the fact that we just have such weird like um uh unreliable elements in our economy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

But I mean I'm not I'm not saying it would fix it.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

I mean that that's one that's one thing. The other thing is like, you know, is that uh the international environment has been very uh stressful for uh most countries and you know, America, Greenland, all those things. And this seems to have sort of increased uh popularity towards like leaning towards the EU. Uh and I guess they're thinking like, well, the midterms are coming up. So if we uh do this before we know if that's gonna be the thing, like the case eventually for the US midterms? Yeah, so the US midterms are in what, November, October? And I guess they're kind of worried if Donald Trump turns into like a complete lame dog president, that the uh existential worries about our security situation will kind of dwindle. So they want to write this before that happens, if that happens.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

That's an interesting take.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I'm not sure if that's what they're thinking, but that could be and my theory was uh locally uh we have the city politics, city elections, municipal elections coming up, which by the way, uh foreigners can vote in. Yeah, if you live if you live here.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Yeah, yeah. Just try and drum up some numbers for that.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

My theory was this this that diverts attention because things like Sjolstedfluchter and the Independence Party locally has been rising in popularity. Whereas this is something that reminds you of who's in power nationally, which is uh so it takes kind of discussion away from the city politics. Which I thought might be the goal.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Like that that might actually make more sense than either of the two things I mentioned. Except for maybe the inflation. I think inflation really like it has inflation is concerning, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:43

My bank loan, the way it works is an indexed loan. Right? That's what it's called, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah, it's uh it's packed to inflation.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

So you're so my principal actually will go up in a couple of years. So I'll owe more on my home than what I paid for it.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Yeah, your loan will grow with the inflation.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

My loan grows, which in uh which is the way a mortgage worked in the United States, but the the principle didn't change. Yeah. But here are the principal changes, which is very painful.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

I think I think we're the only European country to do this.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

But this is what would this be illegal if we were in the EU? I think not.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

I think this was actually kind of looked into after the collapse. I think there were some attempts made to figure out whether or not this was illegal, but it turned out not to be. But it's completely alien, I believe, to flo most other Western European economies.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

But inflation just feels so much more painful in that circumstance.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

It looks worse, but it it actually what is that what it does is that it actually makes it less painful in terms of your monthly payments. Which so you just you know, instead of getting punched, punched in the face right away, it just beats you up sort of slowly. Yeah, more body shots. Yeah, it's more body shots.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

It bruises your face slightly with a hammer and makes you look better. So you look better while you owe more. Um the yeah, the important thing is to is to uh like so a bit about because we're on the topic about inflation.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

I mean, it was in the news also that uh the price of food has been rising faster than salaries.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

Is that news? Uh I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Well salaries salaries in Iceland are very low.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

I mean, I think Well, they're very high in in currency, but low in terms of what you could be purchasing powers in.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Yeah, purchasing yeah. Uh I think for any anybody who's thinking of moving here from America, you might be fascinated to see the difference in in what a high paying salary will get you.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

But um Yeah, it's it's like uh it's numbers, like if you turn them into dollars or euros or something, they look really good. But once you start like living on them, they don't seem that great.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah, especially if you're a kind of a young professional looking. I know I I associate with a lot of young professionals for like dads gather for beers, which is not something I did in America, but now I do here. And if you're gathering and and they're looking at 2,000 kronor a beer, which is what it is, right? Uh boy, your salary doesn't look like it goes very far.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

No, it does really punch you in the face for uh lack of a better metaphor.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

No, because like the other thing that's we know is gonna be rising now is the the price of uh uh gasoline.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Yeah, which will in which will in turn make everything cost more.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Yeah, which is gonna be an inflationary source too. So at least the case of something where foreign uh things actually cause local inflation here instead of being homemade.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

But Iceland has uh protection against um fossil fuel uh inflation in ways that most countries don't.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Aaron Ross Powell No, it's just the cars basically, and the and the ships, but not the house.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Yeah, the ships bringing all our stuff here. Like isn't you know, like we import everything.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

It's gonna be start costing more money. I think the barrel of oil went it's gone above a hundred dollars, which is insane.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

It used to like I feel like for a while now it's not been super worth it to like when you travel abroad to do a lot of shopping, because when you if you crunch the numbers, it's like you can actually just get it to Ice sent to Iceland for not you know a comparable amount. Like I you know, are we gonna see a return to the era of like holiday shopping? Because that used to be like a huge thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Well, you're not gonna holiday in the United States. We know that the flights to the United States are not full anymore, people aren't going there. I'm not suggesting anyone holiday in the United States. But that's what to psycho. That's where the shopping trips used to be, right? To London, Copenhagen. My plans are gonna are to go to Serbia. Famously Serbia? I'm going to Serbia this summer to do some water polo. Yeah. Um and I might do some shopping in Serbia. Yeah, I think. You're definitely gonna do some eating.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

Here you can buy some cheap uh balls there. What do you need for water polo? Nets? Uh balls?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

A death wish. Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, it's all about like it's kind of like the water ocean of self-flagellation, I think.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Yeah, yeah. Really, is it that it looks so easy. Yeah, it looks like a bunch of guys flashing around. It does.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

And when uh my friends come by, because we play at Laura Dust Log the pool, and some of the musician friends walk by and they they were asking to play kind of, and then they're like, Well, uh what you're standing, right? And we're like, No, we're not standing in the water. This is it's illegal, right? So you can't just it's it's seven feet so deep. So you're not gonna you could be standing, but you'd be well underwater. So it's pretty uncomfortable to be treading for that.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

So would it would it mean like if we have somebody who's like seven and a half feet tall, could they that would be illegal? Okay, they couldn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

It would be actually harder for them to play, which is why somebody who's not uh enormously tall like myself kind of enjoys water polo, because at least we're all on equal lack of footing.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

About time. Um yeah, I I guess like I mean, uh the effects of those strikes or whatever the hell you call the situation in the Middle East now.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Well, it's kind of like yeah, it's a war, and it seems to be sort of like creating chaos in orders of magnitude that are kind of almost unconceivable.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah. I don't want to be um flippant about this because obviously that my sympathy is to everybody's hor horrific. But we're looking at like we're already having a lot of uh kind of the rise of political parties opposed to immigration. If you suddenly generate all these people, new war and people fleeing all over the having to flee countries, you're gonna be looking at probably more immigration, I would assume.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah, I guess like this kind of speaks to my uh annoyance at the same time. That's the point.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

Oh a boon to them. But every in every other way, it just they're just shafting themselves really, really hard.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Trevor Burrus, Jr. To the incumbent uh like US officials like J.T. Vance, who spoke at Munich last year and and decried how terribly Europe had been dealing with their uh like ref refugee crisis.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah. Just don't fucking bomb the Middle East. Don't create many more refugees.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

And did you see he's already seems like he's distancing himself from and and then complain that we don't close our borders enough. What the fuck? Like what's it's insane.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what an American politician says. It's it's for the people back it's it's he's gonna run for president in you know three years, two years. And it d you know, it doesn't it doesn't it's for them. It's for that. It's like you know, he's basically just he's building a little clip, a little montage of clips of of him, you know, looking like he has a large penis.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Uh of the past twenty years of history or or they just don't care. I mean, I think you know I I What do you think? No idea.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Uh do I do I think the the J.D. Vance is unaware of the past 20 years of history? I don't think J.D. Vance is unaware. He didn't he serve somewhere out there? I believe. I as I understood it, I I thought he served in Iraq. Am I wrong? Um Yeah, I but that sounds about right.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

He ran a basket in robins there.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Well, I don't want to make light of uh uh of any service. I I'm sure. He certainly he certainly Yeah is a veteran. So uh I don't want to uh No and I and I feel like many of his his what I what I I'm sure he knows he speaks against it frequently on on various topics and it's very confusing. Um so his knowledge is not the issue, it's his actions and behavior that are the issue. Whereas whereas perhaps the the president of the United States, his knowledge uh is also is an issue. I don't I don't think he has any knowledge or any interest in obtaining it. But the JD Vance has knowledge, and so his behavior is almost more concerning because there's no there's no explanation for why.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Yeah, in a way it is it is scarier, you know, than just like Yeah, it's kind of moronic because like the the fact of rank fart kind of ignorance, like it's like this kind of willful, selective sort of you know, this is what gives me more power, so this is what I'm gonna choose to be.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

And you can you can see it more clearly with Vance. Like you know he knows, and you know from his life experience that he knows. So um so I don't know if it'll go over with a with the public the same way, whereas Trump you know he doesn't know. No. And so it's almost more charming.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

But it's not charming is not a word to use now because he's I don't think I've uh ever heard the words Trump and charming in the same sense.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Well, he's at least like He's not cynical, he's just dumb, you know, is what he's saying, I guess. Yeah. Or uh or illiterate or un like unaware of Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

I think it's just Wall Street in the eighties, you know, you just you just learn that all you have to know is like this very select subset of like abilities, of like you know, being able to selectively yell about certain things at certain times.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Aaron Ross Powell But he he was a failure in all in all industry, right? I assume he was a failure in the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Yeah, but I mean he he is shaped by it. Like you know, I'm not saying that he he learned it with any success, but I'm just sort of and that's the world like all of these assholes come from.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Aaron Powell Right. But again, it comes back to the confusion over Vance, who was a success in all areas. Yeah. Objectively. Yeah. And then you see this behavior now, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

No, but I mean it's just like because you know uh the other end of any refugee crisis is the fact like nobody wants to be a refugee. Nobody wants to like be a part of a mass migration because of massive turmoil or war. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Well, you do if you're a right wing politician that stokes anti-immigration fears to your own benefit.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

So like, you know, the these people creating these push factors for these people and then declining to have any accountability on their behalf for doing it is that's a crime in itself.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

That's what hurts, yeah. That's that's the what's what I keep on looking at and and feeling. Obviously, you know, being involved in in the the communities I'm involved in as a foreigner in Iceland, and and you know I definitely hear these discussions. It's it's not easy to to give up your home country.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

No. Um so to a to a lighter talk, uh the Chancellor of the Catholic Church in Iceland was in the news last week. Apparently they have some sort of uh I don't know what even you call these things.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Did his pants fall down in a humorous uh way, or um perhaps he he tripped and fell on some some religion?

SPEAKER_01 47:21

I think the Catholic Church has been kind of quiet in Iceland since uh their latest uh scandal some years ago involving God it's nice when they're quiet. Involving uh abuse of students at the uh Catholic school here.

unknown 47:39

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Laticotch scholar, yeah. They famously um there was a suicide uh following the accusation and then the I guess the eva eventual confirmation of guilt of uh molesting uh uh about a dozen students. Yeah. This is uh close personal history to to my family. Uh we didn't have a child in the there, but they're our neighbors, and uh yeah, we know we know them pretty well.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

And I uh Yeah, I had I had two friends who went there and they're they're kind of you know well three, I guess, and they you know none of them turned out pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

They all kind of sick sick people. All kind of types of abuse going on, including the worst type. Uh but the uh the chancellor here was uh uh he was making a very public stance against uh homosexuality. Which is a bold stance, truly which is kind of what uh what an original uh I guess like you know reminding uh our generally non-Catholic population here of the uh the worst uh aspects of like the medieval views of the Catholic Church, which uh I don't know, it's yeah, weren't they talking about like having sort of sexual orientation correction courses or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Yeah, they call it conversion therapy.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Conversion therapy is the word, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:20

Yeah, it's a big deal in England right now.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Yeah, um and he said something to the effect that uh you know it this is according to the Bible and and the Icelandic state can't tell me what to do. It's the Bible that does it.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

The the difficulty for this particular discussion is that this is a church uh and a location that is famous for molesting children, and you want to send people who are at risk to be counseled on their sexuality by people who have been documented documented as violating children, at-risk children. So you know, like fool me once.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Yeah. Yeah, this seems um in so many ways uh uh kind of a bat um.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

Imagine thinking that saying this is gonna positively contribute to anything. It's just like I'll pick this exact moment to be.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

I'm just curious if they're doing the conversion therapy in a white van and saying, you know, free cookies and conversion therapy to ro to recruit these. Because it's it's it's it's really uh you know, as somebody who was raised in the Catholic Church, it's uh I f I am repulsed by the case. I think uh what I'm kind of most in the Catholic Church.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

What I'm kind of most surprised by the story is just the the sheer tone-deafness of the whole thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:37

Like given their history, recent history here, like what the like I mean if you're a servant of the Catholic Church and you know, you open your mouth in public and you say anything other than like, please forgive us, we're trying to be better than just like your shit. Yeah, shut the f the hell up. Like try to read the fucking room.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Yeah, it was just This was indeed in the news. This was there was a was there a protest following it.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Like I I don't know if there was a protest following, but there was like this kind of interview with this Chancellor whose name I forget. Good. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Yeah, people are really talking about it and really upset. We've we've not really discussed it much in our in our paper.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

No, it also like it's it's also like maybe they I'm wondering whether or not like the the rise of sort of these internet oriented trends of the pro sphere and sort of toxic masculinity that comes with it, maybe they're speaking into that group. If they are empowered if they are if they're thinking at all, are they thinking like maybe there's some market for shit like this right now? I mean there's a importing these really weird infinite subcultures into our culture here, which have to do with like turning around, like you know, getting the patriarchy up and going again, making sure women can't vote, etc.

SPEAKER_03 51:58

Yeah. I mean there is a huge subset of like these, you know, alt-right brosphere guys who are deeply and proudly religious. Which is also funny because like these dying religion will see this and latch onto it.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Because like here's here's some some way we can because it's kind of old funny to me because like Nick Fur Furentas and and what is the name of those fucking repellent repellent uh uh human trafficking brothers who were Oh god, I I've blocked them out. Yeah. What's the name of them?

SPEAKER_00 52:28

The ones that were evacuated. The tate brothers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Uh is that it's I can't think of anything as gay in in like it's like they're like Nick like they're it's like to them this masculinity thing is to like not talk to women right like not talk to women at all. Uh copy their hairstyles. Only hang out with other dudes and I I don't understand how any of this is like heterosexual.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

So like uh They're gayer than we are. I mean I'm yeah, I'm sorry, like I and I mean just sitting here in a tiny room with no pants on.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

I mean and I mean that like and then they tell you like hang like they will explicitly tell you microphones in our palm.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Or having sex with women or hanging out with women is really gay, is what they tell you. Like this is like literal quotes to these people. Like this is really confuses me.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yeah, for real. It's like this is a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

This speaks back to like this generation of people, yeah, who who you know, my generation, you you know, who grew up watching South Park and maybe not really realizing that it's satire, like not, you know, lacking the you know, the the the age and maturity to realize that you know you you're not supposed to root for Eric Cartman. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

So all of this like mild like wildly confuses me. I don't really understand anything here anymore. Because I think there's nothing wrong with being gay, but their version of you know what is being straight makes no sense to me either.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

I w I wish I didn't understand what you know the Catholic Church. I wish I wish they would do something a bit more unpredictable because like this is just like Yeah, I I will say stop it already.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Yeah, i this was a really horrible misstep, but the Catholic Church in Iceland is pretty strong and getting stronger because of the change in demographics. Uh yeah, they have a large.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

They they they are by default usually Catholic.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

Or what about the Baltic states? Uh I think wait. Is it mostly just Poland?

SPEAKER_01 54:33

I don't know, actually. Uh I'm not sure where where the Catholic sphere ends and the Orthodox begins there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

The Philippines as well, like right?

SPEAKER_01 54:42

That's that's Catholic, yeah. Yeah, and then we've got we've got a few of those. Then it gets kind of confusing in in the in s center of Europe for me.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

Right, with the Ukraine Ukrainians changing the day they celebrate Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Yeah, because they're traditionally Orthodox, but they've moved away from the Russian Orthodox faith because of well, the war. And but then like where the the the fourth lands lie after you like look this up with in terms of like the the East meets West, the Orthodox versus the Roman Catholic. I'm not entirely sure where that lies always.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

No, but otherwise you would see, I mean, I would say the Catholic Church had an improving reputation locally before this recently.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Yeah, they they had been kind of like yeah, they have been like improving, and and this is just uh This has enraged a large This has not been helpful to their cause or their uh willingness to have more Catholics uh at all. They got the coolest church too. It kind of sucks. It's a very it's a very black metal church.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Yeah, yeah, it's a cool plant of church.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Very black metal. Very gothic.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Yeah, of the of the several large buildings that that guy did, I feel like that's kind of my fave.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Uh the last topic on the agenda is standardised school tests are back after a five year absence. Yeah. I I wanted to mention this just because uh it's it's in the news like every other year when we do one of those uh when Iceland or Iceland kids participate in the so-called PISA test, which is like a European check in on on how how our kids are doing in math and reading. And every year we're towers of math are leaning. Every year our scores are poorer than the previous year.

SPEAKER_03 56:20

Um right. And then five years ago Is that why they call it the PISA test?

SPEAKER_01 56:27

Uh because we're leaning. I don't know, give me a high five here on both. Oh, right, exactly. So, but when they were trying to figure out what the problem was, they realized that they weren't doing any standardized testing anymore, so they couldn't even begin to figure out where the problem lied.

SPEAKER_04 56:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

So they've decided to do those standardized test tests again, I guess as a way to try to figure something out. So, you know, the part of the discussion last year about this was that you know it was kind of flying blind in in in sense of trying to figure out what to do, because you didn't really have any stats anymore that were comparable. But this all like leads back to a whole discussion about standardized testing and whether or not it's any good. And America has a terrible history of this, right?

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Uh right. So America you know you're talking about the no child left behind after that.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

Yeah, which turned into an absolute disaster because kids were then taught to take the test, but not to actually learn the material behind the tests in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

You used the used were taught. Yeah. It's still that's still a thing. It's a hundred percent the current system.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

Leads to like people just getting honed in to take those tests to score well, but actually not learn anything useful at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Right. Most famously, this this year we have I believe it was an Atlantic Monthly pointing out the number of Ivy League students, the best at the students at the best universities in America who have never read a book is far, far higher than you could ever imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

So working great in old sentence, yeah. Working great.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Yeah, it's it's funny always to see stuff like that and being like an aspiring writer with like a book in the pipes and is just like am I am I just part of some like dying art here? Am I like a loot player in the age of the electric guitar?

SPEAKER_00 58:24

You're in Iceland where people read books and give books. Yeah. As long as we avoid the standardized testing, we can keep the people literate and we meant.

SPEAKER_03 58:40

Well we we managed to do both actually for the longest time.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Aaron Ross Powell Do you it i So before kind of there was a change in the national uh disbursement of funds for education, and this was what year roughly?

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Oh, the nineties, early nineties. Are you talking about when the the municipalities took over from the states? Yes. Yeah. So that happened in the early nineties.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

Okay. And so and and a lot of people talk to me off the record about how that was the beginning of the change. I don't know about the beginning of the inn, but the beginning of the change of the educational system in Iceland.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Yeah, I I think it's From what to what?

SPEAKER_00 59:17

From some kind of grand Iceland punching always above its weight academically to Iceland being stuck in this uh quagmire of uh unable to prove that they're educating and then unable to find to diagnose what the problem is on the educational system uh that comes, you know, all over and over again with this we keep on hearing about it with reading comprehension, reading speed, and uh and then these these standardized tests where Iceland does not perform particularly well. Let's say so you're still graduating, the number of Iceland Icelandic uh born students who obtain PhDs is staggeringly high, and I think their performance at the highest level of academia is uh almost unparalleled internationally.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Yeah, but they're still writing on a system of the past, not the current one.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Oh yeah, that's this is the okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

So but uh uh But yeah, it's true. Like I I to an extent we've we've done pretty well. I mean our university isn't exactly top-notch, but we do sort of pump out a lot of PhDs and and and like and those PhDs are not often taken here, but appropriate. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Exactly. So we can say that I I I have a great deal of fondness for the University of Iceland and also the univers uh Reykjavik University, but um in Akeri. Yeah. But the people they obtain their their BAs there and then usually have to go abroad for their for their masters and doctorates. And the and the my experience, not a lot of people dropping out compared to even American educated people. So there's something that works out there. I feel that there's an uh elasticity in the thinking of Icelanders uh in the way they're prepared that does not that you don't see elsewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:56

Yeah, I mean I I feel like yeah, like there is this sort of lackadaisical attitude when it comes to like how grade school especially is handled here, and and I don't feel like that's changed much, you know, in the last few decades, honestly. And you know, I I just I feel like you know, if if people are committed to academia, that's something that they'll pick up, you know, in their in their teens, you know, when there's you know still plenty of wiggle room to do that. And you know, it just I don't know, it just doesn't seem to be regarded as a big deal. I mean, the the primary aim of of school, grade school anyway, is to just like socialize children and and as long as like that's happening with some success, it's just like standardized tests or not, it I don't think it really makes that big a difference.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

But the standardized test will be horrifying to non-native people like the the people that I associate with are terrified of the way the system works.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Yeah, I think it all comes down to how they will actually how the uh well should put it how they actually not phrase them, but how they conduct like what kind of material they they will come up with to test.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:10

It is kind of shocking to see some of these tests and like realize how provincial they are, like how obviously written by like Icelandic people who don't get out much they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Yeah, but I so like very tailored toward like this sort of what I'm what I'm saying kind of is that if they will sort of like make your like your math exam hang on whether or not you can uh uh understand complex Icelandic sentences.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Which is true. They do do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

It's kind of unfair because then you cannot actually show your math uh knowledge unless your Icelandic knowledge is in package.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:45

Your Icelandic is being tested as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

So your Icelandic is being tested there as well. Meanwhile, they also test you for Icelandic.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

So that's kind of they have to kind of think about how they're I think it does sort of relate to what I'm saying though, because it's like, you know, these tests are obviously that you know they're written by people who sort of staunchly cling to the importance of like formal, proper Icelandic even in the face of like the practical necessity to not do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

It's it could also just potentially be the idea that uh this wasn't thought through because they're like picking up uh you know, they're just doing standards testing again, and maybe they're just looking at the tests they were handing out ten, fifteen years ago, where you really didn't have a lot of uh immigrant kids here.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:27

Where this wasn't such a big part of the landscape, and then not understanding that this is going to be inhibiting for some of the kids.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:34

And these are always like these little, you know, offices that are controlled by these kind of, you know, incumbent bureaucrats who've been sitting behind the same desk for forty fucking years and there's I think you're giving them more credit than than is due. They've been lying down to sl on the desk, not sitting. I think they they they they don't they don't have the the gumption to even sit upright, is what you're saying. Yeah, well see.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

But uh we've I think we're kinda stretched on I think we've kind of got a lot of things. Oh and Davidotson's funeral is this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

Yeah, Davidson's funerals, the state funeral is on Friday.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:14

In the Loiveth David Oltson, former Prime Minister of Iceland for f 13 years in the Oh, can I see that paper real quick?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

It's a good thing they didn't have both those things happen at the same time because I think the uh It's back to back.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

I I think I think the uh coverage of Davidozen, which uh I'm very proud of that we brought in um Hogason for this.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:35

The Venn diagram of people who are interested in these events is pretty much just a circle, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

So of Loeve and Davidozen? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:43

Uh check out the the article, The Last King of Iceland. It's kind of the first local attempt to kinda deal with his legacy. Yeah. It's by uh our local author called Hugo Marhalkason. Uh it sort of dives into like the complex complex relationship many of us have with his tenure as prime minister, as as mayor, or as governor of the central bank, or as the uh editor-in-chief of the last daily paper in Iceland.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:11

The man who ruined all our lives in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

The man who also sold all your genetic information.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:18

Yeah, the man who sold the banks, the man who was the central bank manager during the economic collapse. I mean that it was not a joke. He actually sold the genetic information of all Icelandics. Yeah, the man who privatized a lot of Iceland, the man who kind of is the face of like very sort of substantial changes in Icelandic society in the nineties, and the man who took us to war with Iraq, which is uh Coalition of the Willing. Killer Coalition of the Willing. It's a very sort of intriguing first and a fairly good attempt of c getting to like grappling with this.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

Oh, our feature by Hookermer, yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

It's a very good piece and I highly recommend people look it up. It's on our website. Yeah I can post a link to it also in the description of this. But I think we should Sign off now? What is your sign-off again, Cindy? I don't know. It's too long and confusing.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:06

It's just a phrase I never used. Oh yeah, that's right. Glundine.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:10

Well, thanks. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of uh Icelandtop.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:17

Am I making this show too stupid? Like you I failed my standardized tests.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

I would point out like the level like we're like the level of stupid around us in the world today is so staggering that uh I gotta keep you guys honest.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

I gotta react as m as as any as the average Icelander would react to.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

I still said stock sales in uh the other part of the country, so I I win.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:42

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

Did you did you just like did you just recently plan to bomb a country of 90 million people and not think about the consequences?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

Oh, so I win. I didn't have the worst I didn't have this this podcast is not the worst.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

Thanks for listening and watching, and we will see you next week. Go on time. Bye bye. Yeah. Oh, go on time. The Ricky Agrippan also has an online store. It funds our journalism. Go shop there, and it helps feed our journalists just like the ski serving fat fiber bread.